I love to travel but have found that having a family has really restricted me. I know that some people find that taking their baby with them is no hassle at all, but it was not the same for me. Firstly, I had twins which made it rather more to cope with. Also they didn’t sleep well and so I was always tired and the prospect of travelling, doing more walking and sleeping in a strange place did not fill me with joy! Lastly there was the cost of it all. I am looking forward to the time when they are old enough to stay with their grand parents for a week while I have a well deserved holiday somewhere!

What do you need to Travel around the world or go on a long vaction?

The simple answer is you need time and money to do this, the problem most o fus find is that we have no time as were spending our time to make money so that we can go on those holidays. However when we realise that we work to live and not live to work sometimes it can put a new perspective on things.

If the reason we can’t take a long holiday say for a month is due to the fact that we need to work to make money, then what are we going to do with the money that we do earn? most people’s answer to live and have a better quality of live but if your limiting your relaxation time due to wanting to work then it sounds like your going to be working for a never ending cycle!

Relax and live each day as it comes!

I think that banks should be a lot stricter with their credit cards. People seem to be able to get into debt so easily. I think if they brought back the charge for cards, then this may put people off having so many. Then they should make sure that people realise how much they will end up having to pay back if they do not pay the balance in full each month. If they make sure that every one understands this then it may stop them getting into so much trouble. I guess the banks would make less money out of the interest but with interest rates so low at the moment they are not making much anyway.

I guess that my favourite travel experience was going to Perth in Australia. I have family out there and got to meet cousins which I had never seen before as well as their children and families. To me that was better than actually seeing the country, which was very interesting as well. We were in Perth which was pretty and fun and we visited the gold mining area, explored the bush, old fashioned towns, the city centre and parks as well as other towns in the area and had lots of fun even though it was winter time and raining a lot!

My brother in law was hoping to extend his house but it seems like he has been turned down for the loan. I think that he wanted to increase his mortgage to pay for it, but the bank are not so happy to lend him more money. He easily extended it when he converted his loft and his income is higher than it was then but I think that with the lending problems that banks are having, they are being tighter with their money. I am not sure where he is going to find the money from now, but I am sure he will find a way some how.

I sometimes wonder why people mess around on the stock market. I think it is people who do not really know what they are doing, that cause the most problems. They seem to panic when the prices drop and then sell at a loss which is so silly. I know very little about stocks and shares and so I buy a spread of them and then I know that I am spreading the risk and if prices fall I just hold onto them until they go back up – they will always go up in the end and it is always worth the wait.

I have been having great fun this year. It may not sound like fun to some people but I have been managing to find a lot more freelance work and so have really been increasing my income. This means that I have been able to pay big chunks off the money that I owe. It is a really nice feeling knowing that you are reducing your debts and calculating how long you have until you will be debt free. I guess not everyone worries about being in debt like me but I feel it hanging over my head and also see the interest payments as an expense that I would rather be without.

I am looking forward to next week as I am going to the seaside. As a child, I loved day trips to the seaside where I could spend all day making sand castles. As a grown up, I am not so keen on getting all wet and sandy, but I do love watching my children having fun on the beach. They seem to enjoy making sand castles as much as I used to, as well as digging big holes in the sand and building big sand structures. I am sure Daddy will have great fun too and I might even be able to leave them for a while and have a bit of girly shopping time in the town!

I am hoping that in the summer I can go to Europe for a break. I have never been to France before and I think it would be really great as it is not too far to go but a completely different culture to experience. I think just meeting different people and shopping in different types of shops is a great way to introduce them to different ways of life as well as looking at different countryside and buildings. I think that it will do us all a lot of good and will be an educational experience for the children which will not seem like a chore!

I am going on a steam train next weekend. I am too young to have been on them as a child, but I still find them much more fun to travel on than diesel trains. For the children they liken it to Thomas the Tank Engine, but for me it is more like Harry Potter! I just love the clickety clack sound, looking at the engine and the overall joy that both my husband and my children seem to get from going on there. It just gives us all a fantastic relaxing experience and even better, the children travel for free!